Double-check that math

FOXBOROUGH -- There are, statesmen have said, three kinds of lies. Lies, damnable lies, and statistics. The latter has been in vogue these past few days as some attempt to find every conceivable way to minimize the threat of the Indianapolis Colts offense to the playoff hopes of the defending Super Bowl champions.

That the Colts have the No. 1 offense in the NFL is unassailable, it would seem. The statistics bear that out in many ways. The Colts have scored the most points in the league and have gained the second-most yardage. Other than that, what have they done?

Numerous local pundits, however, took this all a bit further and concluded that it is New England's offense that is far more dangerous than the Colts' against the league's best defenses.

Without a doubt the Patriots will score points today, because everyone scores points on the Colts and the highly skilled New England offense can score on anyone. The question is, can they score enough points to keep up with an Indianapolis offense that is facing a depleted defense, one that will be short two starting cornerbacks, Ty Law and Tyrone Poole, as well as All-Pro defensive lineman Richard Seymour?

Well, the cold, hard football facts -- according to a website by the same name that does some good work but always seems to come down on the side of the locals -- indicate that even this fear is misplaced.

According to the website's statistical breakdown of the Patriots' season, the defense has actually played as well as it did or even better without Law than it did with him. In the six full games Law played, those numbers say, the defense allowed 15 points per game. In the nine in which he did not play, it allowed 15.1. This made me wonder, did they play a 15-game season?

No, they played the Steelers in the game in which Law was injured in the first quarter, before all hell broke loose. So what happened that day? Lawlessness broke out as the Steelers piled up 34 points once he left the field.

To its credit, Cold, Hard Football Facts did mention the Pittsburgh game, near the end of its analysis, and pointed out that the game does change the numbers some. With the Steelers game factored in, the Lawless defense allowed an average of 17 points a game, the same figure the Patriots gave up, on average, in their first Super Bowl season.

The site lists a string of statistics about the Patriots' pass defense after Law's injury to bolster its hypothesis that there has been little dropoff. Among those statistics are these: New England gave up four touchdowns in six games with Law in the lineup (0.67 per game) and 12 without him (1.3 per game). This again leaves out the two Ben Roethlisberger put on them after Law's departure against the Steelers.

The website also points out that the Patriots intercepted 1.2 passes a game when Law played and 1.6 after he left and had 21 picks in all, with only six teams -- none of which are in the playoffs -- having more.

This led Cold, Hard Football Facts to conclude: "In fact, if we look only at the statistical performance, there's been little to no dropoff in the secondary's performance with Law on the sidelines."

That was quite encouraging to anyone looking hopefully at this afternoon's playoff showdown with the Colts, but it left out one cold, hard football fact: In those 10 games without Law in the lineup (including the Steelers game), the Patriots faced seven of the 13 worst passing offenses in pro football. They faced one team in the middle of the pack, No. 17 Cincinnati, and two of the top five, Kansas City and St. Louis.

The other seven were San Francisco (20th), Miami (21st), the Jets (22d), Cleveland (25th), Buffalo (27th), Pittsburgh (28), and Baltimore (31st). Against these fallow fields the Patriots reaped a bountiful crop of good statistics. Predictably, they were dominating in those games, their depleted secondary allowing an average of only 164.8 passing yards a game, intercepting nine passes, and allowing only seven touchdowns.

What happened against the Bengals, Rams (No. 5), and Chiefs (No. 4) without Law and Poole was a horse of a different color.

In those games, New England's pass defense allowed an average of 322 yards, gave up seven touchdowns, and intercepted only four balls. In other words, the pass defense allowed twice as much passing yardage per game and the same number of touchdowns in less than half the games.

Those numbers point out two things -- neither of which mean the Patriots cannot win today.

First, they illustrate the biggest problem with statistics, which is that the cold, hard facts may be neither cold nor hard, depending on how one wants to skew the discussion.

Second, against three of the league's best passing offenses, New England's battered secondary was left scorched, and now it must deal with the league's premier passing offense, a team averaging 288.9 passing yards a game and completing 67 percent of its throws. And that's not only without Poole and Law but also without its best defensive lineman, Seymour.

Again, this does not mean the Patriots cannot win. They have won five straight against the Colts, outscoring them when they had to or forcing them to make crucial turnovers (including five in last year's AFC Championship game).

But the Colts are fully healthy on offense and have an awful lot of weapons; they are six-deep in the receiving game with Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Brandon Stokley, Marcus Pollard, Dallas Clark, and Edgerrin James. They also have a quarterback named Peyton but enough has been said about him elsewhere.

Arrayed against them will be a secondary trying to survive with a rookie corner, a rookie safety, a wide receiver-turned-nickel corner, three street free agent corners, a linebacker at safety, and three very solid veterans in Rodney Harrison, Asante Samuel, and Eugene Wilson.

The real cold, hard football fact is that there has been little to pick from between these two teams for more than a year now. The Patriots have been slightly better every time, which means they are slightly better, and that's a fact, when both sides are healthy. But this time only one team is healthy. Which is why if the Patriots win this game -- by outscoring the Colts with their offense or by controlling the clock with Corey Dillon or by a tremendous rising up of an undermanned defense -- it may be the greatest victory in what has become one of the greatest runs in football history.